Lovingly pinched from The Obelisk: While embroiled in the 53 minutes of Rwake’s new album, Rest, you feel every second of the four and a half years it’s been since Voices of Omens came out in February 2007. That record was Rwake’s Relapse Records debut, and in some ways, the new Rest is a direct sequel. It once again pairs the Little Rock, Arkansas, five-piece with producer / engineer Sanford Parker and finds them imbuing their sludge with atmospheric sprawl, but where Rest surpasses Voices of Omens (not an easy task) is in the level of growth displayed.
On the four extended cuts (plus two interludes) of Rwake’s latest, the band show a mastery of their form and style that couldn’t come from anything but a mature outfit. The music is heavy both in tone and introspection, and Rest benefits greatly from the interplay between vocalists CT and Brittany Fugate, the latter who also contributes samples and noise, but the fact that’s most readily apparent is that four years ago, Rwake simply wasn’t here yet, and they’re here now.
In light of CT having helmed the documentary film Slow Southern Steel, it’s hard not to read Rest in terms of its place in the lineage of Southern American sludge, and in that regard, it builds on the directives of the genre – at times it is painfully slow – but shies away neither from exploration nor melody in the guitar work of Kiffin Rogers and Kris “Gravy” Graves. Rounded out by Jeff Morgan’s drums and Nachtmystium contributor Reid Raley‘s bass (John Judkins has also recently toured with the band in the role), Rwake don’t entirely transcend rudimentary sludge’s punk-based aggression – they’re not trying to – but in terms of where these songs go, it’s clear the band are reaching for something more complex.
They get it almost instantly, the acoustic guitar and melodic vocals from Fugate in the intro ‘Souls of the Sky’ giving way after 1:27 to the near-12-minute ultra-downer ‘It was Beautiful but Now it’s Sour’. The opener, like the later ‘Ti Progetto’, being geared more toward atmosphere and establishing a context for what’s coming, Rest truly gets underway with the second cut, a lumbering pace set by Morgan’s snare and topped with one of the album’s several excellent guitar leads. CT’s first vocals, interestingly, are backwards. It’s a tactic Rwake use toward the end of the song as well, but his gruff shouts are soon turned forward and paired with Fugate’s animalistic black metal snarl. But 3:20 into the total 11:45, Rwake’s expanse is beginning to lay itself out. CT and Fugate synchronize and the effect is engrossing.
Like much of Rest, ‘It was Beautiful but Now it’s Sour’ follows a linear structure, but though there are moments where it feels like their build will just keep going without payoff, Rwake never lose sight of the song they’re writing.
Continue reading: The Obelisk » Blog Archive » Rwake, Rest: It is Later than You Think.
Courtesy of JJ Koczan / The Obelisk.
Tags: Album of the day, Brittany Fugate, JJ Koczan, relapse records, Rest, Rwake, sanford parker, Slow Southern Steel, sludge
This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 7th, 2011 at 7:24 am and is filed under 2011, Album of the Day, Roadburn Recommended . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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